Jasper hadn’t mentioned that. Emma ladled more punch into her glass.
“Except pork. Not allowed to serve that here. Tradition,” Hugo mumbled.
Julia’s tone was arch. “Though I heard there was somethingratherunsavory with a pig in your Society initiations.”
“Ah, but we don’t make the new boyseatit,” chuckled Francis.
The silent servers reappeared to remove the plates. Emma saw Richard signal to Piers. They both slipped out. They returned and placed something with great pomp on the sideboard behind Jasper. A bowl made of a strange veined stone—or was it glass?
“What’s that?” Emma asked.
“The Turnbull bowl. For the ritual, after dinner,” said Francis. “That’s why we’re all here, really. The annual dinner is just to get us together for the ceremony. Turnbulls’ve done the same rigmarole every year since the University started. Same words, same stagy bits, same bowl.”
“Samebowl? That’s a thousand years old? Shouldn’t it be in a museum?” Emma asked.
Francis chuckled. “That’s sweet. Half the National Gallery is on loan from Eddie Spencer’s family. Rory Clarke’s fourth-nicest bathroom is papered with Picassos. Museums are for people who don’t have their own collections.”
The gong crashed. A new plate thumped down in front of Emma.
A rib cage clawed for the sky. It had been forced into a ring shape, like a crown. Some kind of meat held the thing together, but Emma refused to lean closer to investigate.
Jasper raised a glass. “With our bones, we defend the Society.”
“We defend the Society.”
A loud cracking from her left sent a shiver of nausea up Emma’s throat. Francis was slurping at one of the spokes of the crown. “By God, a different flavor marrow in each one! Jasper’s outdone himself.”
Emma felt stomach acid slosh around her insides. She hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast. She’d been too nervous. Her vision of dinner had been so different. Jasper in the candlelight, laughing just for her. His golden head bent close.
Emma twisted to look at him. Jasper, at least, was just as she had imagined him. Smiling, leaning in to whisper. But Lady Alice was sitting in Emma’s place.
She was getting to know the bottom of her punch glass. It was proving to be a beautiful friendship, although she’d somehow knocked over Hugo’s wine and lost her napkin. The room had also decided to sway just a little, which was off-putting.
She had to talk to Jasper. As she made for the head of the table, she seemed to be drawing some odd looks. More fool them, because she was Jasper’s guest. Jasper wasn’t even talking to Lady Alice anymore. He was staring into his wineglass. Of course, because it was Emma he really wanted there. She would make him happy. But when she reached his chair, his face was all wrong, like a stranger’s. She’d never seen his forehead so rigid, or that twitching muscle in his jaw.
“What’s wrong?” Emma reached to stroke the line from his brow.
“Nothing.” He flinched away. “Just the ceremony after dinner. It’s complicated.”
“The one you have the bowl for?”
Emma drifted to the sideboard, ran her finger over the glass-smooth bowl. There were dark veins inside the stone. A candle guttered. Now the veins were crawling across the bottom. Horrible. Alive. Emma jumped back.
“What are you doing? Don’t touch that.” Jasper had her wrist, like a naughty child’s. “Go sit down until dinner’s over.”
Emma slid into her seat, chastened. He was being so different. As though something terrible hung over his head. His precious ceremony, perhaps. She only wanted to help, but he’d flinched from her. As though seeing her somehow made things worse.
Francis patted her hand. “We’re not supposed to stand until the president releases us. But here’s dessert, so it won’t be long.”
Emma’s stomach welcomed the news. Dessert was, at least, a reliably vegetarian course.
The gong crashed. A hand put down a plate. And Emma stared into the skull of a small animal. Otter, if she had to guess, by the extra-sharp molars. They’d turned the head upward, so the jaws yawned open. Its little eye holes had been stoppered with resin, so it made a cup for the brandy inside.
Emma tried to banish the memory of her otters dancing in the foam, at the bend in the river near Gabriel College. It wasn’t Jasper’s fault. He couldn’t have imagined the caterers would use real animal skulls. He would never have asked for that. Across from her, she saw Julia gingerly prodding the skull. Disgust wrinkled her delicate nose. Farther down the table, Venetia was already holding hers up with a grin, testing the sharpness of the teeth against her thumb.
The table cheered as Jasper stood for the last time. “With our spirits”—he grinned—“we honor the Society.”
“Spirits,” said Hugo, sloshing the brandy. “Clever.”
